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Client in our facility in Irvine, CA come here to make changes in their life that boost their health, slow the aging process and build their strength, endurance and flexibility. The pattern of healthy eating and exercising regularly positively impacts many different systems. One of those is the DNA and has to do with lengthening telomeres. If you don’t know what telomeres are, they act like aglets on shoelaces—those little plastic tips that prevent the shoelaces from unraveling. Only in the case of telomeres, they’re preventing the gene damage.

The chromosomes shorten every replication.

If there were no telomeres, cells would only be able to replicate a few times before there was DNA damage or the cells would die. However, instead of the chromosomes shortening, damaging the DNA, the telomeres shortens, so the rest of the chromosome remains intact. Luckily, the telomeres are the disposable part whose whole job is to protect the rest of the chromosome, allowing it to continually replicate without damage to maintain youth and good health.

Telomeres don’t just get shorter and then disappear.

If you want to live a long life, you definitely want long telomeres. However, the body is changing every day with new cells. We’re actually regenerating. While there’s a lot of estimates about getting a whole new body in a certain number of years, many scientists believe that some cells, like the heart cells, don’t replicate quickly, only about one percent per year. Aside from those slowly regenerating cells, there’s an estimate that it takes between 11 and 15 years to regenerate all the cells in the body. If you have longer telomeres, that regeneration takes place and you remain young and healthy. If they’re shorter, you either have damage at the cellular level and get disease or show signs of aging. You can do something to keep them longer.

You can lengthen your telomeres or prevent them from shortening.

If you had a car and the manufacturer said that all you had to do was put a certain type of oil in it and drive it over fifty miles an hour at least three times a week and it would last five, ten or twenty years longer, you’d do it wouldn’t you. That’s the same for your body and telomeres. Studies show you can do several things to lengthen the telomeres you have or slow the shortening process. Chronic stress, for instance, shortens telomeres, so eliminating the effects of stress helps keep them longer. Working out is the real stress buster as many of you know. Making sure you have exercise on a regular basis can help in other ways, too. In fact, studies show that people workout have longer telomeres and the more time spent exercising, the longer the telomeres were.

Scientists identify telomere growth by the amount of telomerase, an enzyme that lengthens telomeres. However, it lengthens the telomeres in both cancerous and healthy cells, so increasing it by chemical means could play havoc. Only by boosting all the systems, including the immune system, through lifestyle changes, can you have the best and healthiest outcome.

Learning meditation, yoga or some other relaxation technique can boost your telomere growth.

Eating healthy is also a way to encourage healthy telomere growth. One study showed a vegan diet and other lifestyle changes actually helped reverse the shortening of telomeres.

Foods that are high in nutrition and antioxidants are important. While you might take a supplement, it won’t provide all the phytonutrients that whole foods provide.

Some people exercise to shed pounds and look better, while others may just love the boost of energy they get and feeling good. No matter what the reason you workout, you get the same results, exercise improves your health. It builds your energy and makes changes to your body that can add years to your life. Your body has five systems that when functioning properly, keep you healthy. They’re microbiome, angiogenesis, stem cells, immune system and DNA protection. Exercise helps all those areas.

What’s your microbiome system?

The simple answer is gut bacteria. Your body has more microbes than cells. In fact, there is an estimate that they outnumber human cells by ten to one, but they’re far smaller than human cells, so they are only five pounds or less of our body weight. The microbiome live in the gut with most of them in the large intestine. They aid in digestion, boosting immunity, keeping bad bacteria at bay and producing nutrients, such as B and K vitamins. Diseases as different as inflammatory bowel syndrome, diabetes and mental health issues come from an imbalance. Exercise can boost the health of gut bacteria and that after just six weeks of working out, the composition of microbes changed to a healthier grouping.

Your body continues to make stem cells after you’ve reached adult age.

Exercise boosts how stem cells behave. Exercise encourages stem cells to produce muscle tissue rather than revert to fat. That means even age related muscle loss can be reversed. Orthopedic specialists often encourage patients to exercise to increase the number of stem cells in the body. The more active you are, the more stem cells are produced. Stem cells can become any type of cell in the body, so there’s a potential for reversing aging. More research is necessary to see the extent of change.

Exercise increases DNA protection.

DNA protection comes from the telomeres on the chromosomes. Telomeres act like the tips of shoelaces, preventing the chromosomes from unraveling and destroying the DNA. When your cells replicate, some of the chromosome is lost. The telomere is the dispensable part of that’s shortened, to protect the DNA. When you workout, you lengthen the telomeres so cells can continue to replicate without damage or cell death

• Angiogenesis is the process of maintaining just the right amount of blood vessels. An excess or insufficiency is bad and can cause cancer, diabetes, heart disease and other maladies. Exercise promotes normalization of the process.
• Exercise also boosts your immune system. It helps boost antibodies and normalizes white blood cells, improve gut bacteria, burns off the hormones of stress and increases the production of antioxidants.
• While exercise is important, you can’t ignore the importance of the role food plays in your health. There’s a whole new area in the medical field studying the potential for food to be medicine to fight disease and keep people healthier.
• You’ll have improved circulation, a stronger fitter body and more energy when you workout, but you’ll also boost your feeling of well being. When you feel happier, studies show you live longer.

There’s a reason to improve oxygen supply to cells. It helps boost your energy level, improves your cognitive functioning and also helps you look and feel better. Improved oxygen levels can improve your breathing, help prevent headaches and that dizzy feeling. However, there’s more than it can do than just that. It improves your overall energy level, too. Today, there’s even skin boutiques that offer oxygen inhalation therapy to improve the condition of the skin and prevent premature skin aging.

Make some dietary changes to improve your oxygen levels.

Diet does play a role in oxygen levels. In fact, without iron in your diet, your blood can’t absorb the oxygen to transport throughout the body. Foods rich in iron include green leafy vegetables, fish, red meat, poultry and legumes. If you have iron deficiency, work with your primary care provider to overcome the problems. Make sure you have foods like broccoli and kale and a well balanced diet, as daily. Skip the junk food!

Get plenty of exercise.

When you exercise, you work your lungs and your heart. Both are necessary to provide more oxygen into the cells. The lungs actually bring it in, while the heart sends it throughout the body. The harder you work your muscles, the more oxygen is used and the more carbon dioxide released. It increases your breathing dramatically and causes the heart to pump faster to bring more oxygen to the cells. You’ll be improving the muscle use of the oxygen, lung capacity and oxygen delivery system with exercise.

Get plenty of fresh air and have plants in the house.

There’s nothing more refreshing than fresh air. It also can boost your oxygen intake. Luckily, it’s relatively nice year around and you can open windows and air out the house frequently. If you live in a colder climate, you’d have a narrow window between turning on the furnace and keeping the windows shut and turning on the A/C, also keeping the windows shut. If you can’t air out the house as often as you’d like, keep plants in your home. They improve the levels of oxygen by using the CO2 in the air and releasing oxygen.

• The more you increase your body’s oxygen levels, the more you improve your concentration. Low levels of oxygen are responsible for headaches, mental confusion and poor memory.
• The American Lung Association, COPD Foundation and federal health agencies all recommend exercise to boost oxygen levels for people suffering from lung disease.
• Improved oxygen levels not only help detox the body and cleanse the blood, it also helps with recovery after an injury.
• Learn breathing techniques to improve your oxygen levels. Studies show that breathing techniques, like diaphragmatic breathing, boost oxygen levels.

Getting good nutrition for life has two meanings, both are right. There are ways to get good nutrition and maintain it for a lifetime, is one way to interpret the phrase. It’s true. The other way to interpret it is that if you have good nutrition, your life will be longer and healthier. That’s also true. What exactly is good nutrition? The first thing to identify is what to avoid to ensure you’re eating healthy. Food with additional sugar added is the first thing to eliminate. Sugar has a huge negative impact on your body. Even worse, it’s additive. Don’t be fooled by the term “natural” sugar, like high fructose corn syrup. It may come from natural sources, but it’s even worse than traditional cane sugar.

Avoid processed food.

Highly processed foods not only are low in nutrition, they contain many additives and chemicals. If you want to see an entire population change from robust good health to one with life threatening illness, find one that changes from its traditional foods to a Western diet. Additives to increase shelf life are added to processed foods, just as extra salt, sugar or refined, bleached flour. Many foods were created specifically to increase consumption with extra doses of sugar, salt and fat that our bodies have been programmed to desire for survival. Of course, that was survival when men lived in caves. Today those cravings only lead to obesity, heart disease and bad health.

Healthy protein is important.

Don’t forget protein. You need protein to build muscle tissue, hair, nails, enzymes, hormones and chemicals for body functions. Protein is used for tissue repair and a basic building block for skin, cartilage, bones and blood. You don’t have to get protein from meat. Healthy protein comes from poultry, eggs, nuts, beans and fish. Protein will make and keep you feeling full, help you shed pounds and build muscle tissue.

Stick with fresh fruits and vegetables and make it colorful.

Fruit and vegetables have varies colors that are created by phytonutrients, such as anthocyanins, which give vegetables and fruit the purple, blue or deep red color. These are powerful antioxidants. You may already have heard of resveratrol found in wine and grapes. It helps relax the artery walls and improve circulation. Those are in purple fruits and vegetables, too. Carotenoids give an orange color, which changes to vitamin A. Chlorophyll gives veggies the green color and boosts your immune system too. Each color has different nutrients, so to maximize your intake, you need a colorful plate.

• Keep your drinks simple. There’s nothing wrong with a cup of coffee or green tea, but you don’t really need milk or fruit juice. Of course, sugary soft drinks are out of the picture, too. Water is best.
• Healthy fat is important. Avoid trans fats and hydrogenated fat, but adding avocado or fatty fish to your diet will actually improve your overall health and help you lose weight.
• When you add grains to your diet, make sure they’re whole grains. Better yet, sprouted grains add a new dimension to healthy eating.
• Don’t forget about regular exercise. While a healthy diet is the foundation of a healthy body, regular exercise is the framework to keep you healthier longer.

The original food pyramid started back in the 1990s by the USDA, but unfortunately, they got it wrong. Why? Nobody is quite certain. Part of the problem may have come from lack of knowledge known today, while another reason may have been from powerful lobbying groups that altered the outcome. Either way, food and nutrition guidelines for healthy kids is one of the most important goals for parents here in Irvine and institutions like schools. Knowing how to start kids out on a healthy track can establish a lifetime of healthy eating.

Nothing is wrong with boosting your vegetable and fruit intake, but don’t count potatoes in that group.

One of the biggest problems with the new MyPlate, is that they count starchy vegetables the same way they count healthier ones. While there’s nothing wrong with a few potatoes a week, they are actually somewhere in between refined carbohydrates and whole grains when it comes to nutrition. A healthy diet for a child should include more colorful vegetables, with far more greens, red, purple and yellow. Make sure your child gets approximately—based on their age and weight—2 cups of varied vegetables with most of them colorful and 1 ½ cups of fruit.

Should dairy be emphasized?

There’s a lot of controversy about having dairy in the diet. Besides the fact that dairy can create digestive problems for some people, there’s no need for more than one or two servings of dairy a day. Those opposed to dairy say it causes respiratory problems, which can come from digestive upsets and acid reflux. There’s also evidence that high milk consumption actually increases the potential for bone fractures, heart disease later in life, some forms of cancer and anemia. There’s no need to have milk with every meal, plus cheese, yogurt and other milk products in between meals.

Fats are an important part of a healthy diet, but are still not given their due.

One problem with using the food pyramid or MyPlate is that neither one identifies the type of fat to include in a diet or gives fat the importance it deserves. While fat is loaded with calories, it also fills you up quickly. Healthy fat is essential for a child’s body development and growth. It’s necessary to create hormones, absorb fat soluble vitamins like A, K, D and E and to create insulation for the tissues of the nervous system. Without enough in a child’s diet, their nervous system and brain growth may not have normal development. The brain is 70% fat. There are three types of fat, saturated, unsaturated and transfats. Transfats and hydrogenated fats have no place in a diet, while adequate amounts of the other two are necessary.

• Even though MyPlate suggests some of the fruit can come from juice, your child is better off eating the fruit and drinking water. Fruit juice is high in calories, without the fiber that aids the digestive system.
• There’s nothing wrong with the recommendations for vegetables and fruit in the government MyPlate, but emphasis should be placed on using the ones with various colors and keeping potatoes to a minimum.
• You don’t have to serve only beef, chicken or pork to get the right amount of protein in your child’s diet, nuts, eggs and beans are a few other sources that should be included.
• Choose water as a drink of choice for your child. If you’re feeling guilty, like less of a parent by serving water, make it bottled water.